


Into the forest dim

by e_p_hart



Series: Nuvo Greek [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Future, Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1304833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_p_hart/pseuds/e_p_hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But it is not a question of instead. They are both condemned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the forest dim

He tried to stay away. He told himself it would not help matters, it would only make her suspicious.  
  
But...Cadmus goes anyway.  
  
Knock on the door. She answers, eyes dull and face pale. Unasked question.  
  
“May I come in?” Tries a weak smile. She does not return it. “Please.”  
  
Into the sitting room, couches low and soft and cool in this darkness of night. A door shows a bedroom where restless wakefulness had been before he interrupted. He clears his throat, clasps his hands.  
  
“Why are you here, Cadmus.”  
  
It is so easy to fall into the role once more, to shrug and calmly place one hand on the back of the couch, and tilt his head and say, “I wished to see you.”  
  
“What can you say to me.”  
  
He--  
  
\--is dying inside.  
  
He should have died years ago.  
  
(--death should be no mystery, contain no fear, whether it comes from your own hand or from another--)  
  
“Kore,” he says, his voice strange. Flit of concern across her face. “I should not have come here,” he says. _He_ says it, not Cadmus the Cold, not Cadmus the Untouchable, _he_ says it aloud, and she is worried, she is standing and coming to cup his face between her hands.  
  
“What is the matter?”  
  
The cameras are noting every moment, every minute detail, and he tastes bile and fear on his tongue.  
  
“I should not have come here. I am sorry.”  
  
“Cadmus--”  
  
“I should go. Now.”  
  
“--wait. Are you in trouble because of me?” Fear, desperation, dawning horror and understanding: “What will happen to me now? Am I--”  
  
He is shaking his head before he knows it. Cadmus-- must not alarm her. He must not alarm her. This is any normal night, my dear, except that it is our last.  
  
Our last night.  
  
What can he give her besides fear? He should not have come.  
  
“Please! Cadmus! Tell me, I beg you: what is to become of me? Of you?”  
  
Sensation of wetness on his cheeks, what can this be.  
  
Oh.  
  
He is crying.  
  
He thought he had forgotten how.  
  
“Cadmus!”  
  
He-- cannot let her last night be terrible. He cannot. If he wants to die, he should not bring her down with him. Quick, distract her, make her forget, make her--  
  
Cadmus--  
  
\-- gives all he has left--  
  


* * *

  
  
The sun rises. Kore sleeps still, naked curve of her back luminescent in the light.  
  
Far off, nearly distant, the sound of propellers.  
  
Or does he imagine it?  
  
Closer now, closer still, should he wake her--  
  
She stirs. “What is it?” she asks.  
  
“Wake up,” Cadmus says coldly. “It is time to go.”  
  
They come in before she can process that, and she clutches a sheet to herself, understanding. They drag them into the waiting flying machines, and fly over the sea with the sun rising. Is she drinking it all in? He shakes her a little by the shoulder: she is weeping, and surely her eyes are too full to take a last drought of beauty. He hates her, because she failed. She failed, because here they are.  
  
He--  
  
He failed too.  
  
“Take me instead,” he whispers.  
  
But it is not a question of instead. They are both condemned.  
  
They land in an open field ringed by trees. Doctors and nurses and guards in white coats meet them, and when Kore digs her feet into the earth they pick her up and carry her.  
  
Cadmus goes willingly.  
  
Is she trying to speak? Or is she merely screaming wordlessly?  
  
Either way, it grates on his ears.  
  
“Stop,” he whispers, covering his ears with shaking hands. He sucks in air, breathes in and out. Blinks his eyelids. Swallows. Wiggles his fingers and toes. Kore disappears down a corridor, and then everything is-- silent...  
  
White room, white walls, everything white. Perfection.  
  
“Goodbye, Cadmus,” a doctor tells him, shutting the door.  
  
Goodbye.  
  
Goodbye?  
  
Good--

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think. I'm too numb to really make up my mind.
> 
> Title from John Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale":
> 
> "O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been  
> Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,  
> Tasting of Flora and the country green,  
> Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!  
> O for a beaker full of the warm South,  
> Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,  
> With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,  
> And purple-stained mouth;  
> That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,  
> And with thee fade away into the forest dim."


End file.
